


you & me & the devil makes three

by whalersandsailors



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Cannibalism, Character Study, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Monologue, Murder, Mutilation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29871588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: Little spends the days in his tent, commiserating with Le Vesconte.The dead man makes for a poor conversation partner, but Little doesn't much mind.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 49
Collections: The Terror Bingo





	you & me & the devil makes three

**Author's Note:**

> for the terror bingo prompt **There's been a vote**
> 
> mind the tags <3

“The men will have a say, of course.”

Little’s voice is dry, raw. He feels the insides of his throat as acutely as a misshapen, scratchy sleeve. For weeks, he hasn’t spoken more than a string of five words at most. Now that the words have begun, he finds them toppling from him like a house collapsing onto itself.

“They will have first pick; which cut suits each man best. I don’t know who’s taken over cooking, but they’ll fend for themselves. I will take what is left. No rank here. No deference. Not anymore.”

He gazes at the view from their tent, over the limestone shale where it blends into the pale sky. The light is blinding, and he squints to better see the men where they shuffle aimlessly from tent to sledge to fire pit. They barely acknowledge one another as they wander around the bleak camp. There are so few of them left, and each have been whittled to wooden husks, ghosts of their former selves.

Little attempts to swallow. His over-large tongue moves in his mouth, and he fights back a cough.

“We still eat,” he says, turning his gaze once again to the coat in his hands. He closes his fist around it, bunching the material until his fingers quake. There is a speck of vomit near his thumb by the coat’s collar. “We still eat. The butchering takes more from me than the relief I get from the meal. But still, we eat. It’s something to do. Passes the time.” He stops. He thinks. “Who made that first decision? When we ate Leys. Was it you? Did _I_ make that command? Did we have them vote?”

He turns his bleary gaze to Le Vesconte. He lies unmoving in his bedroll and stares at the ragged canvas above their heads. He doesn’t answer, and Little clears his throat, fighting another cough.

“It has been long enough that I no longer remember.” He rubs at the vomit marring the coat, his nose wrinkling from the unpleasant odor. Though it is no worse than the stench emanating from his own body, the unwashed clothes and hair, or the acrid aroma wafting from Le Vesconte, from the stain seeping into his bedclothes and draining onto the rocky ground beside him.

Little looks to the men again. He watches a fight break out between two of them around the fire pit, their voices loud and discordant. They exchange a few blows, one of them gripping the other’s shirt, but before Little can rise, before he can shout at them, they slump against each other. They’re breathing hard, their heads dropping to their chests, arms dangling limp at their sides. They let their friends separate them.

“No, I don’t remember,” Little murmurs, watching as the men sit, repositioning themselves around the fire as though no there weren’t a fight only minutes ago. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore. What good is a vote now, anyway?”

He keeps the head. He props it against the crate.

There is a fascinating, if disgusting, irony that Le Vesconte should watch Little as he eats raw slivers cut from his thigh. Little doesn’t eat much. His stomach has shrunk, and he cannot bear more than a few bites. He covers the plate with a cloth, saving the meat for later, and he settles with his blanket around his shoulder to watch the brief sunset.

“Do you think the captain still lives? I hope he doesn’t, if I may be honest. Not now anyway. If living is like this—” He pauses, unsure if he should explain what he means by that, but he assumes Le Vesconte understands. “It’s hardly living. This is hell.”

In a couple hours’ time, the sun will rise again, and the men in the camp will continue their mindless shuffle along the limestone. They haven’t broken camp in over a week. Even the men that pace the perimeter in a semblance of a watch only do so to keep the hunger pangs at bay, to keep their legs limber.

“What do you think the Admiralty is doing?” It is a dangerous line of thought, but Little feels a sudden flare of energy, mania gripping him as the idea wraps around him in an iron hold. “Are they searching for us? Do they know we yet live?”

He lapses into silence, watching the sky darken; not enough for the stars to appear but enough that the air loses some of its glow, the shadows deepening inside the tent until the chill bites into Little’s bones. But the thought of rescue sustains him as he imagines how they might discover them, how a ship of whalers might find them on the coast of King William’s Land, how by some great miracle they would have found Captain Crozier and even Captain Fitzjames, both alive and well. The men would convalesce on ship as they returned to England, never to sail in the icy waters of the Arctic again.

The sun rises, and the dream vanishes. Little sighs. He leans back against the crate, wraps the blanket around himself tighter, and closes his eyes.

“Do you think our families miss us?” he finds himself asking, unsure from what well of grief inside him that question comes. “Do you have sisters? Brothers? I can’t… I can’t remember what my mother looks like.” He chokes down a sob. “I can’t remember…”

He is suddenly grateful that he sleeps in this tent alone with Le Vesconte, that no one else should see him weep into his hands, repeating to himself _I can’t remember,_ though he will not list his grievances anymore for Le Vesconte.

No, he lets the memories die inside his mouth instead.

A Netsilik family strays near their camp one afternoon. They pause at the crest of the hill, seemingly wary of the white men’s camp. Little watches from his tent as two of his men approach the family. He hears nothing of the conversation, but it is short. The men trudge back to camp, dejected in spite of the fresh seal meat given them. It is not enough to share, and Little half expects the men around the fire to begin tearing into each other like rapid dogs, fighting over handfuls of meat.

But the two men with the meat hoard it amongst themselves. Perhaps only Little saw and understood what it is they brought back. They shove the seal meat into their pockets, hiding it from the rest of the camp, perhaps waiting for a chance when they may eat in private and luxuriate in the taste of something other than their crewmate’s flesh or the rancid clumps from the tins.

The next morning, both of them lie dead by the fire, stripped in preparation for butchering.

Little knows not who killed them, but he assumes—with a cautious glance to Le Vesconte’s drooping gaze—that someone must have caught wise.

“Will we be forgiven? For all this?”

He worries the gold chain between his fingertips where he keeps them stashed deep in his pocket, where the warmth of his body keeps the metal tolerable.

“Does God even know we’re here?” He glances at Le Vesconte. The head is leaning precariously to the side, dirt caught in his silver hair, one eyelid concave where the eye is rotted. Little turns away with a grumble, “What would you know? I would ask John, were he here.” His throat grows tight, thinking of Irving. He turns his angry gaze back to Le Vesconte. “Who the hell are you to me? Another officer? A crewmate? A friend?” He spits the word like filth. “No, you pompous and self-serving bastard, John was my friend. George was my friend.” His voice catches. “Thomas was my friend. None of them are here. Only me and you and the god-damned fucking Arctic.” His voice raises enough that he hears the despondent echo rattle through the camp. No one bothers them, accustomed now to Little’s tirades, his muttering. “No one’s coming. We’re already dead, Henry. The captains are dead. Sir John is dead. You are dead. I’m dead. We’ve already been damned to hell.”

He slaps his hand against the head, the solid weight toppling face down onto the rock. For good measure, Little kicks it and watches it scrape against the shale until it rests a few feet away.

He tastes salt in his beard and realizes with a start that he is crying again. He takes his hand from his pockets and covers his face, bawling like a child. He crawls on all fours to Le Vesconte’s head, gentle as he picks it up. He uses his sleeve to wipe the dust from his cheeks, runs his fingers through the hair so it falls with a familiar flip over his forehead. The nose is broken, from what and when, Little cannot say, but he leaves it alone. He props the head against the crate and sits a distance away from it.

He shakes his head.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. It isn’t your fault.” He slips his hand back into his pocket, running the gold chain through his fingers. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

Distantly, he feels his stomach seize from hunger, and he pulls the plate toward him. The meat is darkening, discolored at the edges. He cannot remember how long it has sat there on the plate, but he raises a piece to his lips, chewing through the toughness.

He can longer taste, he realizes, and he swallows with some difficulty.

He looks to the sky, imagining for a moment that the sky is more blue than gray, that the sun moves more than a half-circle above their heads.

“Do you think leads will open up in spring? That we may sail further west?” He asks Le Vesconte beside him. The head doesn’t answer. Little takes another bite of the flavorless meat. “We are close, I think. We are very close.”


End file.
